


It Happened One Night

by VictoriaAGrey



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, John and Sherlock are on the run, Love Confessions, M/M, Post - His Last Vow, Sherlock can't hold it in any more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 03:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1803322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaAGrey/pseuds/VictoriaAGrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was anything that John Watson could build his world upon, it was that Sherlock Holmes would always love him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Happened One Night

Revelations never allowed themselves to be hidden away and kept from knowing eyes for long. Often times they found a way to make themselves known at the most inconvenient of times to those whom they concerned. There was always a day of reckoning and one must always be prepared for it, lest those revelations sneak up from the hallowed depths where they reside to blindside all involved.

Sherlock Holmes knew his day of reckoning would come and all he could think of to prepare himself for one such day was various ways of apologizing.

The very foundation of his life would shatter and shift, like some great emotional Pangaea never to be restored to its former glory. Out of all of the egregious errors he had committed in his thirty-nine years, it was truly astonishing that the one he desired most to keep secreted away was the was the one that was most easily revealed. All it would take is a sideways glance, a slip of the tongue, one misstep in an emotional minefield...

Mycroft knew. Had likely known the moment it happened and sat by patiently waiting and watching for the day his emotionally constipated little brother came to the same realization. Sherlock expected to find derision in his eyes, a sense of disappointment, but what he found was an unnerving sense of compassion and understanding that thankfully Mycroft knew better than to give voice to. Where everyone else saw a cold, although now slightly thawed, self-proclaimed sociopath, he knew Mycroft saw what he also saw when he looked into a mirror: a bleeding heart draining itself of its lifesource to only find a new reserve to tap into and expel upon the ground where everyone walked, but did not notice the precious resource they were trampling on.

Because against all odds and expectations, Sherlock had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love.

~~~

John found out late one spring night whilst on the balcony of a hotel room facing the Alps.

James Moriarty’s return started a series of unfortunate events that sent Sherlock and John’s lives spiraling downward. Lives were claimed, lies were told, and secrets had been forced into unforgiving light. He unleashed hellfire on London for its audacity in believing itself rid of him and he intended to make it pay for its mistake most dearly. Sherlock and John had welcomed Moriarty’s return, looked forward to the challenge of taking him down once and for all, but what Sherlock did not welcome were the revelations about Mary.

She had been planted by Moriarty for the sole purpose of forcing a wedge between Sherlock and John. It infuriated Sherlock that he had not seen through all her lies; although, to be fair, even her truths lied. The unraveling of Mary’s life and lies had reminded Sherlock of some long deleted adage about onions and their many layers. Her loss had hit John (and by association, Sherlock) hard, but he had barely any time to grieve before he and Sherlock were engaged in a twisted game of cat-and-mouse across the Continent.

Hence the hotel room balcony facing the Alps.

John had been unbearably quiet for days and Sherlock despised it. There had been a time when he appreciated silence, but that time had come and gone. He longed to hear his voice so badly that he would have welcomed John going off on some monologue about the weather or Bond movies at this point. Sherlock avoided considering how long it had been since he heard him laugh.

“I’ve never been here before,” he said as he joined John on the balcony in an attempt to coax a conversation out of him.

“Oh?” was all John offered by way of reply as he continued to stare off into the dark, chilly nighttime that surrounded them.

“My parents enjoy travelling so they’ve likely been here. Mycroft too; although, probably for some ‘Taking Over the World’ conference.”

The ghost of a smile teased John’s lips, but he offered no charming anecdote about his travels or how there was a distinct possibility that Sherlock had simply deleted a vacation he had made here with his family as he had hoped for.

“I always favored vacations to the sea or the ocean. The Black Sea was always my favorite, such a curious body of water. Did you know - ”

“Did you go there when you still dreamed of being a pirate?”

_Finally_! Sherlock thought with excitement. Maybe tales of his childhood aspirations would bring John out of his shell. “Yes. In fact, my parents insist to this very day that I made some wayward attempt at stealing other children’s floatation devices and a volleyball net in the hopes that I could craft a raft out of them and sail out to sea.”

“I believe them,” John replied with the first genuine smirk Sherlock had seen in ages.

“I don’t. They also insist that I demanded Mycroft be my First Mate.”

“Let me guess. You deny those allegations unless it includes some evil scheme to make Mycroft walk the plank?”

“You know me so well, John.”

They then lapsed into another silence that left Sherlock scrambling to find another topic of conversation that would interest John without it making him sound like he was reaching. This was the most they had said to one another in days, besides the necessary, and Sherlock wasn’t about to let it slip by. But before he could say anything, John started to speak.

“I always imagined I would lead an exciting life, albeit one as exciting as a doctor can get working in a clinic. And that exciting life always included a wife and kids. Odd how once I got that, or thought I was about to, it turned out to be as imaginary as my childhood dreams.”

Sherlock had no idea what to say, so he stayed silent and listened.

“Where do I go from here, Sherlock? What do I do? Everything for the past several years of my life has been a lie. My marriage was a sham. The pregnancy faked to keep me around. My God, she didn’t even love me. What do you do when everything you thought you knew were lies?”

To hear John sound totally and utterly defeated unleashed something heated and undefined in Sherlock. John Watson should never sound defeated. John Watson doesn’t deserve to feel as if the world is conspiring against him being happy. John Watson deserves to have the world at his feet and ready for the taking.

He had always assumed his deepest, darkest secret would be exposed on accident. Never did Sherlock think that he would purposely put himself into such a vulnerable position, leaving himself exposed to stiff rebukes and awkward pity. But the man before him was broken and had no foundation to work with. When he told the congregation at John’s wedding that John had saved him in so many ways, he meant it. Now he saw the opportunity to return the favor.

Sherlock loved John to distraction. He would lay down his life and everything in it for him without a second thought. Only for him would Sherlock allow his emotional Pangaea to be destroyed in order to provide him with one... because if there was anything that John Watson could build his world upon, it was that Sherlock Holmes would always love him.

“I didn’t lie.”

“You’re going to have to specify on that one, Sherlock,” John scoffed with acrimony that had no teeth.

“I love you.”

At that quietly intoned admission, John turned toward Sherlock with a gentle, genuine smile and the ice that had been in his eyes for weeks was, for at least the moment, melted. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take away from everything you’ve done for me. I’m just not feeling my best right now. Just ignore everything I said, yeah?”

After lightly squeezing his arm, John turned away from Sherlock to head back into the room, leaving Sherlock temporarily dumbfounded. He had just confessed to being in love with him and he took the news as if it were old hat! Only then did it occur to him that John had heard him confess love before, but in a way that did not speak of the depths that he actually felt it.

“No,” Sherlock insisted as he grabbed John’s arm and turned him around to face him yet again. Taking a deep breath, Sherlock prepared himself for what he was about to do. There was no mistaking this one for anything else. Looking John straight in the eyes, he tried again. “I love you.”

Before now, Sherlock did not think it was possible for a human to short circuit, but he started to seriously reconsider that stance when John did not move for a solid ten seconds. He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe, he didn’t flinch; he literally just stood there staring at Sherlock. Sherlock dropped his hold on John’s arm and started awkwardly reciting the apologies he always knew he would have to say while looking at anything but John.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have said anything and it was really quite foolish of me, but I thought you should - ”

“Stop,” John implored, halting him mid-apology. “Just stop.”

Sherlock fell quiet, listening to the sound of his blood pounding furiously through his veins. It was nerve-wracking that John had not allowed him to finish his apology so he could leave the hotel room for awhile, come to terms with what he had done in peace somewhere. Instead he had to stand before John, exposed for what he was with nothing to do but look on and watch as John struggled to comprehend what he had confessed.

“How long?” John choked out after what seemed like eons of silence.

“What?”

“How long have you felt this way?”

And that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? Admittedly, it took Sherlock an embarrassingly long time to parse out what John meant to him. Jealousy of John’s girlfriends had been written off as anger towards John for not being as committed to The Work as he was. Fear of John dying via sniper fire from Moriarty’s men explained by not wanting to lose his first friend. It wasn’t until The Woman and her misguided advances that he realized what he felt for John was love and that love had a patently sexual undertone.

Loving someone wasn’t an entirely foreign concept to Sherlock, as much as he professed it to be. He loved his parents, Mrs. Hudson, and even obnoxious, nosy Mycroft. He adored and respected Lestrade and Molly. The only detail that differentiated John from those whom he knew he already loved was that he wanted him. Since Sherlock had no intentions of acting on his bodily desires, he ignored it and lumped John in with the rest.

One faked suicide, two years of absence, and three months of intense wedding planning later, Sherlock recognized that he did not simply love John, but was _in_ love with him. Had been for a long time. The final confirmation was seeing Mary beside John, smiling and with child, John’s child, knowing that he had lost John forever. Lost him to a wife and child, the normal life he claimed he wanted and Sherlock could not provide. The sound of his heart crumbling was quieted later that night by the shuffling of John’s chair into his old bedroom, the forlorn notes of Bach’s Aria of the Goldberg Variations on his violin, and the plunging of a needle into a raised vein.

“I do not know what it means to not be in love with you.”

John turned away from him, clamping his hands down over his eyes and breathing heavily. Sherlock wanted to reach out to touch him, reaffirm to him that he was there and that nothing had to change just because he had spoken those three small words. It was enough to have him in his life and he would demand nothing more. Loving him from afar was far better an option than not having him in his life at all.

“Damn you, Sherlock.”

“John - ”

“The – that whole – this whole time you’ve been in love with me and you said _nothing_!”

“I couldn’t.”

“No, you could have,” John bellowed at Sherlock as he turned back to face him looking desperate and livid. “At any time in the years I’ve known you, you could have said something! And you didn’t! For the first time in your whole damn life you shut up and it’s for all the wrong reasons.”

“What the hell are you talking about!?”

“God, sometimes you really can’t see the obvious even when it’s staring you in the face.”

A variety of protests were on the tip of Sherlock’s tongue and all were forgotten when he felt John’s lightly calloused hands cup his face. Strange to have such little warning for a moment that would irreparably change his life. He felt himself suck in a startled breath before John’s lips connected with his own, sealing their lips together. Sherlock’s eyes closed and his hands reached out to grab John’s sides under their own volition.

It was far from being Sherlock’s first kiss, but it was the first one that meant something to him. In pursuit of answers to puzzles, he had kissed many women and men alike. Kissing was an effortless way to show supposed affection and attraction. But that was not what he felt in this moment. No, in this moment the pressing of their lips held with it the power to build a world or to rip the color out of the one he currently inhabited.

John’s lips were soft, gentle in a way that made Sherlock melt. Expressing a long suppressed desire that he knew all too well. It wasn’t a kiss that was erupting in passion, but acting as confirmation that Sherlock wasn’t alone in what he felt. He was cherished. He was loved.

Loss was the first sensation he felt when John pulled his mouth from his and Sherlock chased that warmth, wanting to reclaim it. A contented sigh from John’s throat sent small vibrations to their lips and Sherlock delighted in the feeling, knowing he caused John to make it. Wanting to cause it an infinite amount of times in their shared lifetime.

“I thought you weren’t gay,” Sherlock said when John abandoned the kiss in favor of resting his cheek against his, moving his hands to rest at the back of his neck. Sherlock kept his eyes closed, basking in the feel of John against him, not yet ready to see how different the world would look.

The amused puff of air out of John’s nose tickled Sherlock’s cheek. “I thought you were married to your work.”

“Well, you are a part of The Work.”

“I seem to recall a time when you replaced me.”

Sherlock smiled at the memory. It was transparent to him that John was bitter about his brief partnership with Molly, his blog failing to make the comment seem humorous over passive aggressive. “Apologies for my affair. Will you ever forgive me?”

“Maybe,” John replied in a thoughtful tone. Sherlock felt John’s face leave his, hands moving back to reverently stroke over sharp cheekbones. Opening his eyes, Sherlock knew it was illogical to be irritated at the world for not changing to reflect the change he had gone through, but he felt it anyway. However, none of that frustration was directed at John who did look different, incandescently beautiful. Striking. “How do you intend to make it up to me?”

“I’m sure I’ll find a way.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is complacent with my theory regarding series three and Moriarty's return. It's at my Tumblr, [mycroft-silently-judges-you](http://mycroft-silently-judges-you.tumblr.com)! I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> This is my first one-shot in the Sherlock fandom. Be gentle!


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